India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently called for the empowerment of Muslim women. One would have expected this message to receive acceptance and support. It did not.
There was resistance on several fronts. Some saw Mr Modi’s move as a political stunt. Some questioned whether Mr Modi was doing anything meaningful in the education and empowerment area. Others came out against it because of a connection to the triple talaq controversy.
There is no gainsaying that there is a critical need to empower Muslim women through education for India to achieve its full potential. The status of education in general was captured by the 2001 census which revealed that the Muslim literacy rate was only 59 per cent. In response to these and other findings on Muslims and others among the weaker sections, the Sachar Committee Report of 2006 disclosed a development deficit in many areas. The report resulted in the creation of an across-the-board programme for the development of minorities. This programme and other initiatives had a beneficial effect. In the 2011 census, the overall literacy rate for Muslims went up substantially to 68.5 per cent.
But the numbers within numbers tell a different story. The worst literacy rate for women in India is among those in the Muslim community at less than 52 per cent.
Even more worrying is the performance of Muslims in higher education. A US India Policy Institute report released in 2013, six years after the Sachar Report, showed that only 11 per cent of Muslims in India pursue higher education compared to a national average of 19 per cent. The literacy rate and the higher education statistics represent a double whammy for Muslim women as it relates to empowerment. In education, literacy is the starting line and higher education is the finishing line for becoming fully empowered.
That must change. For the Muslim woman, education itself is empowering. It is an opportunity creator.
For the Muslim family, education prepares the Muslim woman to be a change agent. Too many Muslim families are trapped in poverty because of a lack of education.
For India, education delivers on the promise of the largest representative democracy in the world. Central to that promise are equality, opportunity and inclusive economic mobility. Education levels the playing field and makes that promise a reality.
In the 21st century, higher education is becoming more important for climbing that ladder. By higher education, I don’t just mean colleges or universities. I include technical, vocational and professional education at the secondary levels. It might seem that I am a little delusional given the current circumstances in talking about Muslim women and higher education. But that is not the case.
On my last visit to India in February this year, I had the good fortune to meet young Muslim women students at Fatima Girls Inter College in Azamgarh and Abdullah Women’s College at Aligarh Muslim University. During that visit, my wife Debbie and I also dedicated the new management complex at AMU, and, I predicted that from this complex “will come the future leaders who will make India and the world a better place”.
Many of those leaders will be educated and empowered Muslim women who will be in the forefront of empowering other Muslim women. When that occurs, those Muslim women would have realised their full potential.
